Alright, so throughout the journey down towards NY I will be posting updates from my BlackBerry to keep you guys informed. The trip will be Jeff, Yassir, and me in a minivan for about ten hours. It should be memorable.
6PM - Waterloo - Yassir is late getting here from Bolton, which is delaying everything. Once he finally gets here, we will be on our way. If he ever reads this, he should know Jeff was yelling. A lot.
7:30PM - Waterloo - Yassir finally showed up so we are on our way to the border now. Jeff is freaking out about every little thing which will be amusing for a while. We have a bunch of snacks and energy drinks so we are set. Also, we are recording our route so we might have a map of our trip up once we get back.
9 to 10 PM - Border Crossing at Niagara - So we were delayed at the border for an hour since Yassir only has a Pakistan passport. One highlight from the questions he was asked is: “Mechatronics? Is that like Transformers?” Upon arriving in the states, we were met with a billboard advertising the high success rate of a local hospital. Commercialization of hospitals is just wrong.
11PM - I90 East - So we just got to a snow storm on the I-90 on one of the longer legs of our journey: 210 km from Buffalo to Syracuse. This will be an interesting part of the trip as we can’t really stop throughout. I’m just glad we’ve got snacks.
11:40PM - I90 - 350 miles to NY! Woot! The snowstorm is long over and we’re on one of the boring parts of our trip. We are investigating the ‘Exotic’ side of the Tandoori Sizzler Doritos chips we bought. Jeff doesn’t have any otters though, so we might be in a bind. Yassir’s sister called and berated him for making us an hour late. Thanks, Mediha!
12:30AM - I90 - 300 miles to NY! So we initially wanted to have a game where we guessed how many American flags we would see. Since we’ve only seen one, and we’ve seen about ten McDonald’s we’re thinking that would have been a better one to do. It’s too bad Terrill and Captain didn’t want to come with us. 
BTW - Terrill: how goes the route watch? You still on that or have you gone to bed?
12:45AM - I81 - Well, we’ve switched over to I-81 which will be the next big leg of our trip: 211 km worth. Getting onto it was another story though: We were enjoying singing along to ‘Sweet Caroline’ so much that we missed our turnoff! Thankfully, BlackBerry Maps quickly saved the day and gave us another route to get on the 81. Best of all it actually saved us 40 cents in tolls by using less of the toll highway system!
1:20AM - I81 - Snowstorm in blizzard form: whiteout conditions. We’ve had to slow down to half speed just to maintain some control. We broke out the chocolate covered almonds. Also, I checked Facebook and let them know about this blog. Expecting some more comments soon. Quarter tank of gas, so we’ll be making a pit stop at the next major city: Binghamton.
2AM - I81 - Just entered Pennsylvania State and it started snowing again after quitting at around 1:35AM. We were met with about ten more McDonald’s signs once over the line. Also, apparently it’s National Work Zone Awareness Week here in the states. We will now be stopping in Scranton, home of the TV show ‘The Office’, for gas. Note: apparently my shaven head shines blue in halogen light.
2:40AM - I81 - So Jeff and Yassir tell me to have a nap in case I have to drive later. I make sure they can get to Scranton on their own and get some shut eye. Apparently they stop for gas and lose us by 3:10. They realize around 3:20 and wake me up. Then I miss an exit since I’m still waking up, which means we have to take a bunch of rural roads. Now we’re behind another hour.
4:15AM - I80 - Finally out of the back roads and on to a freeway again. That was a true test of our friendship, but I think we passed with flying colours. Speaking of flying colours: total flags before entering rural roads - 2, total after entering - 12. At least something good came of it. :S
5AM - I280 - We can see NYC! Just a short one as now we need to navigate. Will update around 6AM.
6:15AM - NYC Apartment - We’re here! Besides losing all GPS reception once we got into the city and having to spend 10 minutes parallel parking the van it wasn’t too bad! Jeff ended up driving the whole way, and Yassir and I got very little sleep. Hence, we will be sleeping until we need to catch a subway to eat lunch at Google NY with Mike.
That’s it for this post, but there should be more starting around lunch time. I am also planning on adding some photos as we sight-see around town.
